Tehran, Feb 9, IRNA – Minister of Petroleum Bijan Zangeneh said on Tuesday that the text of new oil contracts has not yet been finalized.
Briefing a press conference on Iranian Petroleum Contract (IPC), Zangeneh said, ‘When a new plan is proposed, wide-scale opposition is raised against it; this will of course be solved with passage of time.’
According to Shana, Zangeneh said the new model of oil contracts is aimed at attracting foreign investment.
The minister said that Iran doesn’t have enough domestic sources to develop the oil industry, thus foreign investment is needed.
He called for $200 billion of investment for development of country’s oil industry.
According to Zangeneh, Iranian oil industry’s upstream projects need $130 billion of investment while the downstream projects demand $70 billion to be developed.
He further added that several regional countries have taken measures to discourage foreign investors from investing in Iran.
Last November, Tehran hosted 137 companies from 45 countries for a two-day conference, during which legal generalities of the IPC were introduced and it was announced that more details about the contracts would be unveiled during a conference likely to be held in London in February 2016.
However, on Jan. 30 Iran announced that the country has decided to cancel the London conference due to “problems for issuing UK visa”.
Prior to the scheduled London conference, a group of Iranian conservatives protested against the IPC suggesting the new model of the oil contract is against the Iranian constitution.
The IPC is a framework that lays out the basic structure – and some details – regarding all future petroleum contracts in Iran. It was earlier announced that the country plans to boost oil production to 5.7 million barrels a day and gas output to 1.4 billion cubic meters a day by 2021.
Iran’s current oil production is estimated to be around 2.8 million barrels per day of which about one million barrels are exported.
By holding 157.8 billion barrels of recoverable crude oil reserves, Iran possesses the world’s fourth largest reserves of crude oil.
The Islamic Republic also holds 34 trillion cubic meters of proven gas reserves, sharing 18.2 percent of total global gas reserves.
By IRNA
Source Article from http://theiranproject.com/blog/2016/02/09/petroleum-minister-ipc-text-not-yet-finalized/
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